This past weekend marked the launch of ‘The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir’. Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotech in Gaithersburg, MD, hosted the event.

Some may think that the idea of superbugs and antibiotic resistant bacteria are something out of science fiction movies, but most experts will argue that this is a growing crisis that our world will be facing in the not so distant future. It’s the author’s goal for this book to help spread awareness and the importance of taking this threat seriously, along with the science that could hold the solution.

The story recounts the experiences of Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, and their fight to beat one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world.

His life-saving cure came from a forgotten science, phage therapy, and the rapid scientific response from the FDA, Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center who came together to discover a treatment that saved Patterson’s life.

As miraculous as their story is in itself, it was also just the beginning of a longer story about development, commercialization and the birth of a company that may become a pivitor force in the war against multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria.

The Navy saw the urgent need to translate their phage therapy research into commercially available therapies, developing this technology further to create new therapies. National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientist Carl R. Merril, Ph.D. was one of the foremost experts on this technology, whose early work provided the foundation for the Navy’s research. Dr. Merril also happened to be the father of serial entrepreneur Greg Merril, who had a knack for being able to take innovative new technologies to market.

Long-story-short, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics (APT) was born, as a Father-son team began their new mission to save lives and develop new therapies for the treatment of multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria. They are wasting no time to accomplish that mission either.

In 2017 they opened a BSL2 lab and the only cGMP phage manufacturing facility focused on the rapid and precise delivery of phage therapy. They received $600,000 in funding from TEDCO in 2018 to support their commercialization growth and continue to establish partnerships to advance their technology. The company has been recognized as one of the 36 startups that could change the world and has recently participated in the Netflix documentary – ‘Follow This: Superbug Snipers’ to raise additional awareness for phage therapies.

The Perfect Predator is now on sale so you can learn more about the fascinating story of Steffanie Strathdee and Tom Patterson, and the domino effect that followed their life-saving journey.

Over the past 8 years, Chris has grown BioBuzz into a respected brand that is recognized for its community building, networking events and news stories about the local biotech industry. In addition, he runs a Recruiting and Marketing Agency that helps companies attract top talent through a blended model that combines employer branding and marketing services together with a high powered recruiting solution.